A few days ago, 2016 Deep Sea Energy Conference was held in Haikou. When talking about the importance of the deep sea energy, Chaofeng MAO, member of the Standing Committee of Hainan Party Committee and executive vice governor said that “Those who master the development technology of the deep sea energy have the right of speech about the international energy. At present, more than 50 countries conduct the deep sea oil and gas resources development all over the world, with the average operation water depth of 3,000m. The deep sea energy development has become a new position for countries all over the world to show that comprehensive national strength.”

The Conference has its title of “Scientific and technological innovation leads to be green, safe and efficient”, which is designed to contribute ideas and exert efforts for development of the South China Sea energy and further promote the cutting-edge research and technical innovation of the deep sea energy, especially the relevant field of the oil and gas resources to promote the development and utilization of the Chinese ocean resources.

Enter Deep Sea to Expect Scientific and Technological Innovation

Guangqi WU, deputy general manager and deputy secretary of the Leading Party Group of China National Offshore Oil Corporation stated at the Conference that “Along with development of the shallow sea petroleum and natural gas, our maritime resource development has stably enter the deepwater.”

According to the instruction by Guangqi WU, the Chinese enterprises represented by China National Offshore Oil Corporation have achieved a series of achievements in terms of the deep sea energy technical equipment in recent years. Take China National Offshore Oil Corporation as an example. It actively implements independent research and development and external cooperation, tackles key problems based on the key technological difficulties restricting its development and has independently developed 5-type 6-vessel deepwater operation devices represented by “marine oil 981”and“marine oil 201”, which are respectively applied to the drilling operation, seabed pipeline construction and material support, which greatly enhance the operation capacity of the marine oil and gas deepwater device of China, with the maximum water depth of the independent drilling operation increased to 2,451m from 505m and maximum water depth of the pipeline construction increased to 1,409m from 106m, providing important equipment support for China to independently explore and discover the large gas field and successfully develop the large “Liwan 3-1” deepwater gas field, achieving the stride of the Chinese ocean industry from the shallow water to deepwater.

However, he also pointed out that there is a big gap in terms of the deepwater oil and gas field development engineering technology of China compared with that of the developed countries, because China starts late, which is characterized by a small number of deepwater equipment, incomplete types, no series and differential deepwater operation device and lack of vessel type equipment with proprietary property right. The core technology of the ocean equipment is still mainly mastered by the foreign companies. The matching capacity of the key domestic equipment is low, with the import substitution rate of the high-tech ship supporting facility of less than 20% on average and most of high-end equipment is imported. Meanwhile, the complicated maritime oil and gas characteristics, high temperature and pressure and harsh marine conditions of China, such as frequent typhoon and complicated submarine topography decide lots of challenges to develop the deepwater oil and gas fields. In particular, under the background of low oil price, how to reduce the cost to develop the deepwater oil and gas fields and better plan development based on survival becomes a problem to be solved as soon as possible.

Therefore, he suggested to strengthen the domestic and overseas cooperation, make full use of the innovative platform integrating the industry-university-research-application, actively promote the research on the marine oil and gas engineering technology and major equipment, enhance the technological level of marine oil and gas development, accelerate the domestication process and strive to reduce the upstream cost to achieve cost reduction and benefit increase.

Ya YU, vice president of China International Marine Containers has his own ideas of the technical innovative practice of the ocean engineering equipment. He pointed out that as a periodic industry, the marine oil and gas equipment must determine the technical innovative objective and mode while meeting the periodic requirements. High efficiency, reliability and economical efficiency are always the main line of the technical innovation of the ocean engineering industry. The design and construction efficiency and reliability must be enhanced with big data and smart manufacturing.

Pengju ZHANG, deputy general manager of Marine Oil Development Meizuan Deepwater System Co., Ltd. pointed out three innovative development tendencies of the deep sea energy development equipment in the future. First, over-distance control and communication; second, modularized integration and collection; third, super deepwater sea area development.

When talking about the path of domestication, Daoyi CHEN, director of Marine Science and Technology Science Department of Tsinghua University pointed out that the intelligentization of the ocean engineering equipment industry must be drive by innovation. It is necessary to strengthen introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation, policy support strength to purchase the domestically-manufactured equipment and building of the test certification capacity.

According to the introduction by Guangqi WU, the South China Sea energy resource exploration of China is mainly in some deepwater areas, with the water depth from 300m to 3,000m and an area of about 100,000km2. Development of the deepwater oil and gas field of the South China Sea has such characteristics as high input, risk, technology and sensitivity. At present, the quantity of the oil and gas output developed by countries around the South China Sea is more than 5,000t each year, which is equivalent to the annual output of Daqing in an abundant year. Therefore, we must further accelerate development of the South China Sea oil and gas.

How to develop the deep sea energy resources of the South China Sea? Peiyuan HU, counselor of the State Council pointed out that resource development of the South China Sea involves politics, economics and military, which is a national system engineering and must be coordinated from the national perspective. Specifically, efforts shall be put on the following aspects.

First, development by division and control by classification. The oil and gas exploration and development areas of the South China Sea may be classified into three types: First type, middle and east parts of the north part, namely, Xisha, Zhongsha and Dongsha Islands and surrounding sea areas, which are relatively less disturbed. Second type, Nansha sea area with complicated landform; third type, sea areas close to Vietnam and the Philippines. Type I area centers on the tourism, mineral product and oil and gas resource development. For types II and III areas, the principle of priority to the easy, low sensitivity and non-traditional safety field may be followed to carefully promote joint and cooperative development.

Second, echelon promotion from north to south. During the “13th Five-year Plan”, our main exploration and development are in the area with low disturbance in the northern South China Sea. The exploration and development of a batch of oil and gas fields are in the South China Sea, showing the hard power to develop the oil and gas in the deepwater area all over the world. Formulate the Strategic Action Plan for Fundamental Oil and Gas Exploration of South China Sea and Oil and Gas Development Planning of South China Sea, develop the regional geophysical exploration and drill the oil and gas foundation well.

Third, we take the initiative and achieve win-win cooperation. If countries along South China Sea agree to “suspend the disputes for joint development”, a benefit sharing mechanism relating to the population and economic scale in the region and capital and technical input may and shall be established. Under the framework of China- AFTA (10+1), develop the cooperation of areas outside the South China Sea, explore a new mode of cooperative oil and gas development and benefit sharing to promote the resource development of South China Sea to step onto a new step.

Fourth, definite objective and peaceful development. Propose to establish an organization for cooperation in the energy of the South China Sea and call for the surrounding countries to establish an energy development and coordination mechanism of “benefit sharing”. Establish the Asian energy funds and research and promote joint development of the oil and natural gas of the South China Sea. Based on the population and economic aggregate of the relevant countries, establish an incarnate Asian Energy Investment Group. The countries in the region determine the basic share according to the population, economic scale and national territorial area. Meanwhile, the relevant countries outside the region are allowed to subscribe certain rights and interests.

With Unique Advantages, Hainan Shoulders Heavy Burden

Chaofeng MAO said that “Hainan is a province with small land area, but large ocean area and is authorized to govern 200,000,000km2 sea area. According to the statistics, the available resource quantity of the South China Sea area governed by Hainan Province is more than 78,000,000,000t, including 29,000,000,000t petroleum and 49,000,000,000,000m3 natural gas.” He added, “Rich deep sea resource reserves provide advantaged advantages for Hainan Province to implement the national development strategy of ‘One Belt and One Road’, vigorously develop the blue economy and strive to become powerful and Hainan will strive to convert the advantages into the development opportunities.”

Specifically, first: Policy advantages. Several Suggestions for Promoting Construction and Development of Hainan International Tourism Island issued by the State Council in 2009 has definitely proposed to develop Hainan into a guarantee base of development service of resources of the South China Sea. Second, advantages of infrastructure and industrial system. Last year, during pilot reform of integration of several regulations, Hainan has defined to construct an oil and gas industrial base in Yangpu and Dongfang and accelerate to promote the construction of the main network infrastructure, including the oil and gas pipeline, so as to enhance the internationalized level of the infrastructure of the oil, gas and chemical industries. At present, Yangpu has gathers a batch of upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain such as CNOOC, Sinopec and China CEFC Energy. Third, governmental service advantages. At present, Hainan has promoted the new policies and modes during implementation of the park projects to create a good investment environment for the enterprises. Fourth, cost advantages. Hainan is located at the strategic pivot of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which has advantages in production, transportation and storage of the oil, gas and chemical products compared with lots of inland provinces.

Chaofeng MAO said that “We hope that more oil, gas and chemical enterprises may make full use of these advantages to develop to Hainan.”